Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger and 16-year-old Melissa Lencioni, a gymnast and an ice-skater from Westmont, Ill., share a secret. So do Ghost Whisperer star Jennifer Love Hewitt and 15-year-old Todd Mulgrew, best skateboard for beginners from Spokane, Wash. They've all found a way to feel great and perform better as they participate in their favorite activities.
Their secret? Balance training. Challenging your balance helps your body learn to stay in place when it's thrown off guard. A balanced body is also a stronger body. "A friend told me if I had better balance, I'd be a better boarder," Todd says. "A few weeks after I started working on my balance, I noticed I was able to do better moves."
What Is Balance?
Balance starts with the brain. The brain tells the body what to do when the center of gravity changes. For example, suppose you're walking on a sidewalk and catch your foot on a curb. "Whether you're able to correct your position and stay upright or fall off the curb depends on how good the wiring is in your nervous system, between your brain and your muscles," says Lorne Goldenberg, a conditioning specialist in Ottawa. Goldenberg has worked with National Hockey League teams and is a coauthor of Strength Ball Training.
In the same way that some people are simply born with greater speed than others, some people are born with more advanced nervous systems. That's why you might be able to walk across a balance beam, whereas your friend can't stroll down the street without tripping over her shadow. "But that's not to say that [people] born with poor balance can't improve theirs," Goldenberg says. "Everyone can."
Why bother? For starters, you'll find, as Melissa and Todd did, that your favorite activities become even more fun. "I started doing gymnastics when I was 3 years old," says Melissa. "That gave me great balance, so when I started ice-skating last year, within a couple of weeks I was able to do moves that take a lot of people months to learn."
In addition, "good balance reduces your risk of injury, no matter what you're doing," says Gray Cook, a physical therapist in Danville, Va. He has worked with professional football and basketball players and is the author of Athletic Body in Balance. "Many times when you get hurt, it's because you don't have that combination of mobility and stability [movement and steadiness] that good balance gives you."
Research has shown that high school basketball and soccer players who added balance training to their regular practice sprained their ankles less often than team members who didn't do balance training. But not only athletes benefit from balance training. A Canadian study recently found that within a few months of working on a wobble board, teens who weren't members of sports teams lowered their risk of injury in daily activities. (See "Balance-Training Tools" for more on wobble boards and other balance-improving devices.)
Find the Right Balance



There are a lot of fun ways to improve your balance. You can do specific balance-training exercises, with or without equipment. "One way of describing balance is being able to have the computer--your brain--tell the motor--your body--what to do," says Goldenberg. "By doing exercises that challenge your balance, you improve your 'wiring,' the connections between your brain and your body." (See "Build Your Balance" and "Balance-Training Tools" for some starter exercises.) For example, Love Hewitt performs exercises called squats. Those exercises require her to balance while she lowers and raises herself.
Cook and Goldenberg agree that another important part of good balance is a strong core. That area includes the abdominal muscles (abs), lower back, hips, and bottom. "One job of your core is to [keep steady] the rest of your body as it moves," says Cook. Todd uses a fitness ball routine to strengthen his midsection so that he can maneuver better on his skateboard. Abdominal crunches are also a great way to build core strength.
When you get into the habit of doing balance-training exercises, you'll find that they're worth the time and effort. "Just skating got me only so far. I feel like once I started doing the ball exercises, that's taken me to a whole new level," Todd says. how to turn on a skateboard
Discuss
* What are the benefits of balance training? (It enhances abilities for other sports or physical hobbies and helps prevent injuries.)
* Which body parts have the most control over balance? (the brain and the core muscles, including the abdominals, lower back, hips, and buttocks)
* According to the article, who can balance training help? (Teens who are athletic and those who aren't; both high school basketball and soccer team members, as well as teens who didn't play sports, had fewer injuries after trying balance training.)
* After reading the article, are you interested in trying balance training? Why or why not? (Answers will vary.)
Do
Lead students in trying the exercises on page 17 every class period for a few weeks. At the end of this time period, ask students to assess the value of the experiment. Do they feel their balance and stability have improved? Have they noticed improvements in terms of other physical activities? If your students seem to enjoy working on balance, purchase a few pieces of balance-training equipment.
Resources
* One video that demonstrates balance-training techniques is Foundations of Core Stability and Balance Training, led by Annette Lang, available at
* A good source of balance-training equipment is Fitterfirst
RELATED ARTICLE: Build your balance.
You can make major improvements in your balance without any equipment. Here are two fun exercises recommended by conditioning specialist Lorne Goldenberg and physical therapist Gray Cook.
1. With your arms at your sides, stand on one leg. Keep your other leg raised in front and bent at a 90-degree angle for 30 seconds. Repeat, standing on the other leg. Build up to 90 seconds at a time on each leg, a few times a week. If you can stand on one leg much longer, then work on the less stable leg until the times are the same for both legs. Fit this exercise into your daily schedule by doing it while brushing your teeth, advises Dr. Brian Fullem, a podiatrist from Newtown, Conn.
2. To make the preceding exercise more difficult, rise up on the toes of the supporting leg. That requires more of a connection between your brain and muscles, says Goldenberg. Build up to 90 seconds at a time on each leg, a few times per week.
Once you've mastered those exercises, make the first one even more challenging. Stand on one leg, with the other leg raised and bent at a 90-degree angle. When you feel stable, close your eyes. See how long you can stay upright. How to ride a skateboard for beginners
BALANCE-TRAINING TOOLS


For more challenging balance exercises, try these fun tools.
Your physical education teacher may have some of these items at
school and can guide you in these exercises.